“I have a happy nature, / But Mother is always sad, / I enjoy every moment of my life, / – Mother has been had.” Saturday got you down? Here are a few brilliant little poems and their accompanying doodles by the late, great Stevie Smith.
Over the Frontier
Germany’s Top Literary Prize
The Georg Buechner Prize, Germany’s highest literary honor, has been awarded this year to Reinhard Jirgl, author of The Unfinished. (via AuthorScoop)
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Google to launch e-reader
Google will launch the iriver Story HD this weekend. It will be the first e-reader built to be fully integrated with Google Books.
On Angelou’s Legacy
Over at The Takeaway, Nikki Giovanni and Kwame Dawes reflect upon Maya Angelou’s enduring legacy, and how she affected both of them personally.
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Wide Sargasso Theory
This year, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle for their groundbreaking The Madwoman in the Attic.
Guiding Light
In case you missed it: Google bought Frommer’s last August. Then in April, Google announced that it would stop printing hard-copy guidebooks, so founder Arthur Frommer bought his company back. All of this has led Doug Mack to argue that not only do we need guidebooks, but they should be part of the literary canon. “They also stand out for shaping history, if not always intentionally, because of their authoritative reputation—they have long been the best insight into that which would be otherwise unknown.”
“Stare at us stoned like eyes determined”
Rage Against the Machine frontman Zach De La Rocha has penned a poem dedicated to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
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Detective Michael Lewis on Goldman Sachs v. Sergey Aleynikov
The Big Short and Liar’s Poker author Michael Lewis investigates the case of Sergey Aleynikov, a computer programmer accused by Goldman Sachs of “violating both the Economic Espionage Act of 1996 and the National Stolen Property Act.” Is this the case of an international spy bent on stealing company secrets, or is this the case of an overzealous company taking revenge on an ex-employee, and using an ill-prepared government agency to do so?
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